This is from a collection of photographs that the owner has marked with an “X” to identify herself and others. If you look at the larger version of the first photo you’ll see she put an X above her head and on the dress of her baby (or is the baby her?) Because of the X files I’ve decided to call her Dana. Unfortunately we never learn her name. This photo is labelled “Me my mam and dad aunties and uncles.”
This photo’s labelled “me” so I take it this is Dana.
This is Dana’s Auntie Florence.
Two photos of Betty – was she Dana’s sister? The faded photo is dated 1943 and is the only photo given a date.
Marjorie and Betty at Batley. Below we also have Marjorie at the staff dance – again identified by an X.
Dana’s “mam and dad.”
Dana’s grandma – identified by the X on her blouse.
Blackie Binkie and Dickie.
I was hoping one of these gentlemen would turn out to be Dana’s father but she’s written on the back “John’s Father with his workmates from Yorkshire Copper Works.” There’s no clue as to who John is so it doesn’t help. Nevertheless the newspaper clipping provides fascinating detail.
Overall the collection illustrates some of the frustrations of collecting old photographs. Clearly there are intriguing stories behind them but nothing to definitively identify the subjects. From the notes and photography studio stamps we can place them in and around Leeds. Otherwise we can only be grateful for Dana’s “X”s to at least show some of the relationships.
My sister and I recently went on a “ghost hunt” at Belper Mills organised by “MJL paranormal.” You can see the video they produced after the event below.
I can’t say I encountered anything spooky but it was worth going just to see inside the East Mill as well as a lot of the rest of the mill complex. The event itself was well organised and stewarded and there was a very entertaining talk from Richard Felix, local paranormal investigator and ex “Most Haunted” presenter.
My only complaint about the event was that it was rather too organised and packed with use of various pieces of equipment. I would have liked the opportunity to just sit quietly in some of the rooms without the use of EMF meters etc.
(We previously attended a similar event at Strutt’s School Belper, run by a different group, which was more eventful especially when it came to “table turning.”)
I can neither confirm nor deny a personal belief in the supernatural.
Above is an example of what I call “The Expressionists” for want of a better term. Obviously these groups of dancers are trying to convey something but it isn’t always obvious what they want to say. As often as not there’s no information on the cards to help.
I can tell you that this card comes from an album featuring Raybury School of Dancing Folkstone, Maidstone and Athelston School. Dated in the 1930s but what it’s about I don’t know. A scene from an opera perhaps?
And this one’s from from an album of photographs and clippings related to ballet in Weymouth during the 1950s and 1960s. I guess they are posing for a photographer while warming up.
I call this one “The Dying Swan.” You can often come across variations of this type.
Another mystery. Representing some sort of myth?
Obviously a ritual to welcome the spring I’d argue!
Ah, must be the dance of the birdhouse!
Homage to the fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Variations on the circle dance are also popular.
Any suggestions on the real subjects of these dances welcome.
“So often it’s hard or impossible to find out anything about music hall performers who appear on Real Photographic Post Cards. In the case of Violet Lorraine there’s a fair amount of material to be found. Wikipedia tells us:
She was born Violet Mary Tipton in Kentish Town, London, in 1886 and went on the stage as a chorus girl at the age of sixteen. Her rise to fame came in April 1916 at the Alhambra Theatre in the musical/revue The Bing Boys Are Here. She was given the leading female part, Emma, opposite George Robey playing Lucius Bing. It became one of the most popular musicals of the World War I era. She retired from the stage on her marriage on 22 September 1921 to Edward Raylton Joicey MC (1890–1955) and they had two sons, John and Richard. She returned to acting for the screen, appearing in Britannia of Billingsgate (1933), a musical based on the play of the same name by Christine Jope-Slade and Sewell Stokes, followed by Road House in 1934.
Violet Mary Joicey died in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1956, eight days short of her seventieth birthday.”
Further information can be seen in this article from an old magazine:
Violet was famous for singing “If you were the only girl in the world” with George Robey. You can hear her singing if you search her name on Youtube.
I’ve shown the RPPCs in my collection but there are lots more out there.
Finally, and I don’t know whether to believe this, the John Peel Wiki claims that he played played her track, ‘When We’ve Wound Up The Watch On The Rhine’ on his radio show.
Vintage dancing girls come in many different configurations from solo dancers (some just posing), troupes professional and amateur, old, young and sometimes not even girls as you will see below. That diversity is what struck me about this genre of RPPCs and photographs when I began this collection. I’ll be posting some examples of the different types of dancing girls in the future but I’m starting with a few of the couples from the first 100 items in my flickr album.
So clearly this dancing girl on the left is a man. One of the intriguing things about collecting old photographs and postcards – irrespective of the gender of the participants, you have to ask “What on earth were they thinking of when they did this?”
I think it’s safe to say this is two women. The studio is Stahl Studio, 1221 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia, PA. I’m guessing 1920s from the looks and clothing.
Colourised postcards were very popular. Curiously only the dancer to the right has her dress colourised though it’s possible the other dress was too but the colour has faded.
Ideal Studios. Written on back “Myrtle The Witch Marjorie Fairy Bluebell School Play London St Martins School 1921.” It’s always a bonus to have details such as date, names, studios, locations.
The second photo is also by Ideal Studios Oxford St. Written on back ” Myrtle and Marjorie Dancing Display.”
Musical theatre type outfits are popular though Jazz hands not so much.
A more candid photograph in contrast to the more usual and obviously posed ones. There’s nothing to identify the dancers but from their clothes I’d guess late 1950s or early 1960s.
Again nothing to identify these two. This was image 100 in the collection in 2016. The album was started in 2012 and is, of course, still ongoing.
Sometimes it’s hard to understand music hall performers. I’ve seen at least two other postcards of The Yorkshire Rustics yet what was their act really like? From this image they look more frightening than entertaining. Certainly depictions of simpletons and lunatics would be offensive to the modern eye.
There’s a good discussion between Alexi Sayle and Stewart Lee about music hall acts in Alexi Sayle’s podcast (episode 7) about “working class surrealism.” They’re both music hall fans and the more I think about it the more I can see music hall influences on variety acts of the late twentieth century and, of course, Sayle and Lee and other performers like Frank Skinner, himself a George Formby fan.
Speaking of surreal, how about this skating girl and skating bear? That must have been a sight to see.
And here’s a girl talking to her teddy bear.
Groups of “juveniles” were very popular in the halls and some performers continued to perform as juveniles long after they could sensibly claim to be so young. In terms of collecting I can’t successfully repair the damage to this card digitally, though it’s still of interest.
There’s a fine line between music hall performers and those who would once have been exhibited in “freak shows.” According to sideshowworld.com “Lady Little travelled all over the world. In 1913 she was 23 inches tall and weighed 12.75 lbs.” Contrast the indignities suffered by the Elephant Man and the popularity with royalty of “General” Tom Thumb.
Contortionists were another staple of the music hall and variety.
And of course there were the ever popular exotic acts.
The TV programme “The Good Old Days” did a good job of reproducing some famous acts but it was clearly a highly sanitised version of what a real music hall bill was like.
So I was listening to an episode of the loopholes podcast when they began discussing haunted dolls. Though I often find old photos of dolls creepy I never realised there was a whole sub-culture invested in haunted dolls. Indeed I was astonished to find a search for “haunted dolls” on Ebay came up with 1600 such dolls for sale. These dolls came with detailed histories of when and where they came from, what their powers were and so on. Cue a discussion with my wife about buying old dolls at car boot sales and making up stories for them before selling them on ebay.
This angry child from my cabinet card collection would be a good basis for a story. Now where can I find a doll that looks like hers?
This girl and her doll look particularly spooky don’t you think?
This doll has such powers it needs six girls to restrain it.
Now this photograph, and it is a photograph not a postcard, has real potential. The Ebay seller I bought this from suggested it could be a post mortem photograph, a “popular” thing to take in Victorian times and commanding high prices for good examples from collectors today.
Ultimately I don’t think this a PM photo even though the Girl’s eyes seem to have been painted on. The doll though – now that’s a different matter.
I don’t really believe in haunted dolls though, after watching a Youtube video of twenty haunted dolls, I noticed the comments were mostly people apologising to the dolls for looking at them without permission. I didn’t apologise so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know why.
[This article was first published in The Call Boy,Summer 2024]
I collect old photographs and real photographic post cards. Most people following this hobby will at some point decide to specialise in a specific subject. In my case I began to notice how often photographs of girls in dance costumes began to crop up. It didn’t seem to matter what age they were or, in a few cases, what sex they were. There are many different categories of dancing girls to be seen from girls’ dance groups in school to exotic dancers to be seen in nightclubs and on the stage; from amateur solo dancers to large troupes of professionals. From the point of view of the Call Boy the photos of most interest are of the professional and semi-professional dancers that appeared in music hall, theatre and variety shows and it is these that I concentrate on here.
The most obvious place to start is with the Tiller Girls. I used to think that the Tiller Girls were just those dancers who appeared on Sunday Night at the London Palladium but was surprised to learn that the first Tiller Girls were trained by John Tiller in 1889 and that there have many different troupes trained using his methods ever since, some bearing the name Tiller Girls or Tiller Troupe but many going under different names. There is an excellent book tracing the history of the Tillers – Tiller’s Girls by Doremy Vernon which, though out of print, can easily be obtained on one the web auction sites.
Another famous group of dancing girls were to be found at the Windmill Theatre. Although they might be better known for their naked tableaux, the Windmill Girls performed dance routines in shows and they were in constant rehearsal for the new shows which changed regularly. You can find some fragments of routines by the Windmill Girls on YouTube, as you can for the Tiller Girls. There’s even a 1949 film shot in the Windmill Theatre called “Murder at the Windmill” which has recently been broadcast by Talking Pictures TV. There is also the Judi Dench/Bob Hoskins film “Mrs Henderson Presents” though I understand some liberties were taken with the storyline. The Windmill also published annual editions of a magazine, Revudeville, where you can find photographs of the dancers and their individual names. After publishing one photo of Windmill Dancers I was contacted by the son of one of the dancers!
Nearly every Music Hall and Variety bill had its share of female dancers, many if not most unnamed as they appeared in chorus lines. There were many variations on the type of dancers and, of course, they often presented skits and other entertainments as well as dancing. Juveniles seem to have been very popular and were often presented as if they were all members of the same family though this was not always true. “Model Maids” and “Dairymaids” were other popular ways to package dancers. My own collection of photographs and postcards suggest that troupes of dancing girls must have run into the thousands. Some, like the various Tiller troupes, lasted for many years whilst others probably had much shorter shelf lives. What happened to all the “juveniles” for instance? Herein lies the problem of collecting these materials in that it’s difficult or impossible to find reliable details and dates for when these troupes were active. Sometimes there’s a date on the reverse of a postcard and often there’s the name of the studio where a photograph was taken but handwritten dates are unreliable and most of the studios have long since disappeared. Even if a troupe was photographed at a named studio there’s no guarantee that the town where the studio was situated was the home town of the dancers. Trying to trace information about these dancers online is usually fruitless and shows up the inadequacies of the internet for any serious research into the history of these entertainers. Books such as “Grace, Beauty and Banjos” by Michael Kilgariff and “Roy Hudd’s Cavalcade of Variety Acts” contain lists of performers but seldom have any information on any but the most famous dance troupes
My own favourite “dancing girl” is Jessie Matthews, often known as the “dancing divinity.” At least in her case there is a plethora of information to be had on line and in print but best of all we still have her wonderful films from the 1930s. It’s tragic that she never got to work with Fred Astaire as apparently other work commitments prevented a planned project together.
The entire collection of my vintage dancing girls photographs and post cards can be found at https://flickr.com/photos/basilisksam/albums/ I am still collecting and still researching and would be interested to hear from anyone who can add to my knowledge of vintage dancing girls.
A set of miniature postcards of Victorian actresses all addressed to Edith at Birch View Whitechurch Tavistock. Edith was the youngest daughter of Joseph Helson who was the detective in charge of investigating Jack the Ripper’s first victim, Polly Nichols. Helson on his retirement moved to the Birch View address. The cards are all postmarked and dated 1904.
Apart from the strange Ripper connection these cards are unusual, being of a much smaller size than normal, hence they were known as midget or miniature postcards.
Edith continued to receive postcards of famous actresses in 2005 and 2006 but this time of the more usual full size variety.
I’m not sure how to interpret this photo of Billie Burke. Presumably we’re meant to think she’d just been hatched from an egg but why’s she got a stuffed bird on her hand?
Weddings are another type of family event and photographs don’t always show that everyone is having a good time. This group look very glum.
I count three smiling women but the rest, including the bride and groom, are not so happy.
A more formal group. Photograph dated 1921 and location Ringley.
“Duncan’s wedding party” is written on the back.
On the back of this photograph we have “Marriage of John Froggatt at Watford and Harriett Abbott (mother Harriett Ann Walker Abbott (widow)) 20th July 1909.”
And these are my parents Charles and June on their wedding day in 1952.
